Short Story: The Servant

Yes!”exclaimed Mayank as he got down from his school bus , he whooped with joy and swung his bag in the air , today was a big day
, finally Shruti had consented to sit next to him in the bus , must have seen the look on poor Raghav’s face. They had had a nice chat ending with the agreement that she would sit with him tomorrow as well.

He kicked the house door open to find his mother looking worried , “watsup mom?”, he asked , “It’s the 8^th standard now , last year you barely passed in Maths ,its only got to get tougher , so I am just worried about tomorrow.”Mayank felt his enthusiasm dipping considerably, oh , tomorrow his exams were starting and to make it worse , the first paper was mathematics. “oh don’t worry Mom , this time I’ve got it all figured out” ,his mom looked alarmed, “what! are you going to cheat”, he laughed it off reassuringly .

Now look at the irony of fate , instead of wallowing in his happiness he would have to start studying mathematics, there you go, the first chapter was number system , and to tell the truth , he couldn’t tell an integer from a whole number. So, painfully burying his happy reflections he started pouring diligently over his book. Suddenly he remembered , “Ma , I don’t have a hardboard to write my exam on tomorrow”, he belonged to one of those old schools who insist on using hardboards , “don’t worry honey , I will tell Shyam to get it for you”  , his mother replied , Shyam was their domestic help who had been around for a long time.

Mayank woke up early in the morning , after his bath , he secretly took his bottle of hair gel from the wardrobe and tried the wet look, his mother hated it , but now he was in the 8^th standard and plus, exam or no exam Shruti had promised to sit with him today , he tiptoed to his mother’s dressing room  and squeezed a huge dollop of his mom’s moisturizer rubbing it into his face, he didn’t know exactly what was a moisturizer meant for  but his mom used it , so he guessed it enhanced beauty somehow. Dad was out of town, so stealing into his room and purloining his Musk perfume was the work of a minute. Mayank felt ready now, to spend fifteen minutes in the bus with Shruti.

There, the bus had arrived, he took one last look at his crisply ironed shirt and the perfect double knot tie in the mirror, his mom was by his side now, “why have you used your father’s perfume?” she questioned with raised eyebrows , “Mom I am in a hurry , will explain when I get back”, he kissed her and ran for the bus , “at least take your hardboard and your  maths notebook to revise in the bus”, he grabbed the hardboard, gulped down his milk and sprinted to the bus. There she was, sitting by the rear window, with the adjoining seat empty, looking cute as she shuffled through her notes. He felt like a bollywood star, he puffed his chest and took the seat.

 Other boys in the bus were pointing at him and laughing, “let them”, he thought,”jealous brats”, suddenly Raghav shouted at him from his usual last bench lair, “what have you got in your hand sissy”, and the whole bus burst out in laughter.”What ,it’s a” he stopped in mid sentence , he couldn’t believe what he was seeing , it was a fluorescent colored hardboard printed with a cartoon of Mickey and Mini mouse in a school uniform. “want to go back to the 3^rd standard , huh?”Joked one of Raghav’s cronies from the back.

By now Shruti’s attention had also been diverted from her notes , he noticed with a wince that she had a plain brown hardboard. The comments just kept coming from the back all the while but Shruti didn’t say anything, Mayank finally felt relieved when the bus reached the school, “all the best”, he said to her, she nodded, hesitantly, he asked, “we are of course sitting together in the afternoon, right?”, she had a curious expression on her face, “grow up, Mayank”, saying which she left.

This was not how it was supposed to be, Mayank was experiencing his first heartbreak three minutes before his mathematics exam, all this over a little thing such as hardboard?, but perhaps at this age it was the little things that mattered the most. Obviously, he spoilt his exam.

“WHERE IS SHYAM?” , he shouted as he flung open the door ,his mother came running  , “Shyam has gone out to buy vegetables ,how was the paper sweety, will you pass?”, in reply he flung his hardboard at the wall , there was a loud click as the hardboard fell to the ground , cracked . “oh , so you won’t”, said his mother despondently ,”because of SHYAM”, he screamed , his mother was nonplussed, “look at that, that’s what he brought me , I am in the 8^th standard , the boys made fun of me all the way in the bus”, his mother was incredulous “so you spoilt your Maths exam because some boys made fun of your”-but Mayank had walked off, parents would never understand what he was going through.

He slammed his door shut and fell on his bed sobbing , his mother knocked for a long time but he didn’t open ,had Shyam not brought this stupid hardboard all would have been well , he thought enraged , some ancient domestic help did this to him, got him insulted in front of Shruti.”Come and have lunch” his mother was banging the door, he flung it open and said in a very measured , mean voice “I don’t want Shyam in this house ever , until you throw him out I will not eat and I will not give my Physics paper day after tomorrow” and closed the door in her face .Hours passed , darkness fell , his stomach started rumbling but he didn’t open the door .It was dinner time , “open the door son I want to talk”, his father had come home , and his mother would have poured her troubles over him by now, he cautiously opened it.

“come and have dinner first and then we will talk”, his dad said pleasantly, in response Mayank buried his head in the pillow, “okay tell all that happened and then we will give a good scolding to Shyam”, his dad pressed , “a scolding won’t do ,you turn him out of the house , you don’t understand what he has done”, he retorted. All his father’s attempts were fruitless.

“All right son , you are acting stubborn , if you can’t be reasonable then I can’t help you , Shyam has served us for eighteen years , I am not going to terminate  him on your whim”, his father left the food plate on his bed and departed muttering  “you need to grow up, Mayank”. His anger knew no bounds he threw his plate of food, and even though hunger gnawed in his stomach he fasted all night.

His strike continued the next day, he refused breakfast. At lunch his mother came in and delivered a stinging slap across his face, but he refused to eat.

It was late evening now , Mayank was dying of hunger but he still held on as he knew that his trump card will be used now , “hasn’t eaten for two days , hasn’t started studying for tomorrow’s paper , says he won’t take the exam” he could hear his mother complaining worriedly as his father arrived. His father sat next to him, lovingly stroking his hair, “c’mon beta, see reason, Shyam has worked so faithfully and he is old now, it will be difficult for him to find another employment”, but seeing the unforgiving expression on Mayank’s face, he sighed , “oh God! You are sure going to regret this later Mayank, fine, we will let go of him, now please come and have dinner”

The food never seemed so tasty, his young mind selectively ignored the fact that the meal had been prepared by Shyam. Full now, he vigorously immersed himself in his Physics text, suddenly there was a knock on his door. He opened it to find his object of hate Shyam standing in the doorway, “WHAT?” he snapped, “I have come to say goodbye, I am going back to my village Mayank baba”. Oh so they never told Shyam it was because of him that he had been fired and he would never have asked, for unlike the modern domestic help, Shyam was the old style servant, he believed a servant is bound in servitude to serve his master but never to question.

“ok ok” Mayank said quickly and was closing the door when Shyam said “one moment baba, I figured you might need this tomorrow for your exam , it was lying broken in the lounge”, in his hand he held that fluorescent hardboard with the pictures of Mickey and Mini , clumsily patched up by cello tape. “got this one specially for you “, Shyam said reflecting pleasantly ,”the shopkeeper was showing me dull brown ones ,but I pointed this to him , I knew baba liked Mickey Mouse , remember you always used to cry for Mickey Mouse stuffed toys when we took you to the fair. Anyways, do well, goodbye then”. Mayank took the hardboard from him without saying a thing; he could not bring himself to close the door. He watched as Shyam lifted his small black suitcase and green rucksack, that was all he had, and walked towards the door with a bowed head.

Sharp pangs of nameless guilt shot through his bosom as he bit back tears, even now he could stop Shyam from leaving and end this madness, his parents were standing right in front, but his fourteen year old ego paralyzed his legs and his voice , how could he admit he had been wrong all the while ,after so much drama, how could he concede his hard fought victory for a lame defeat. If only his parents could give him a cue now and he would run and call him back, but they didn’t .Mayank looked resignedly at Shyam walking away from the house, his hands clenched around his fluorescent hardboard, he knew he would never discard it , for one last time the figure of a drooping man carrying a black suitcase and green rucksack flickered under the sodium light, and faded into the night.